Lasher beats Bores after AI groups spend $27 million in NY primary
Alex Bores lost New York’s 12th District Democratic primary to Micah Lasher after AI-linked super PACs made the race a national test.
By Maya Lindqvist · Senior Technology Correspondent
3 min read
New York Assemblyman Alex Bores lost the Democratic primary for New York’s 12th Congressional District after AI-linked political groups poured more than $27 million into the race. The contest drew national attention because Bores had helped pass state legislation placing safety rules on major AI companies, according to The Verge.
Assemblyman Micah Lasher led Bores 39.1 percent to 35 percent in the latest count reported by the Associated Press. Lasher is running to replace retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler, a Democrat, in the Manhattan-based district.
The spending made a local House primary a test of the AI industry’s political reach, The Verge reported. FEC filings compiled by Transformer showed AI-aligned groups spent $27.41 million around Bores’s candidacy.
Super PACs split over Bores
According to Transformer’s campaign finance tracker, pro-Bores groups spent $19.26 million. Those groups included Jobs and Democracy PAC, Dream NYC, You Can Push Back and the Guardrails Alliance.
Leading the Future, a super PAC that opposed Bores, spent $8.15 million, according to the same tracker. The Verge reported that Leading the Future is a $100 million super PAC supporting a deregulatory agenda in the midterms and has been funded in part by executives from OpenAI, Palantir and Andreessen Horowitz.
Bores had coauthored the RAISE Act, which The Verge described as a high-profile New York bill that created guardrails and safety requirements for frontier AI companies. A version of that measure was signed into state law last year, according to The Verge.
Groups backing Bores had ties to OpenAI critics and AI regulation supporters, The Verge reported. Jobs and Democracy PAC was funded by Public First, a super PAC that received a $20 million donation from Anthropic. Dream NYC received substantial funding from Dan Ziegler, an early Anthropic employee, according to The Verge. You Can Fight Back was funded by a $3.5 million donation from Ripple cofounder Chris Larsen, who told The New York Times he wanted to push back against OpenAI’s influence.
Local politics still decided the race
The Verge reported that the AI fight was only part of the race. Lasher had long been seen as a protégé of Nadler and was backed by a super PAC run by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Lasher also cosponsored the RAISE Act, according to The Verge.
Bores still finished ahead of other better-known candidates. The Associated Press count showed Jack Schlossberg, a grandson of President John F. Kennedy, in third place with 10.8 percent. George Conway, the former Republican lawyer known for his criticism of Donald Trump, placed fifth with 7.1 percent, behind Nina Schwalbe, according to The Verge.
After conceding, Bores congratulated Lasher and said he had not entered the race to make “a singular point about AI.” He added: “Though we’ve come up short tonight, the example set here was not the one the AI oligarchs intended. They set out to make people afraid to stand up to them. Instead, they learned just how ready people are to push back.”
The spending is spreading beyond New York. Transformer’s tracker showed AI-related groups have spent a combined $50.1 million across 19 states, with the NY-12 primary the most expensive race tracked and recent Texas primaries second at $4.6 million across seven races.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.